Quick connectors are used to assemble rigid fluid lines or tubes to mating components such as a flexible hose, or a fluid system. The quick connector assembly includes some form of body or housing that defines an open receptacle with internal cylindrical surfaces of varying diameter that coact with the inserted tube.
The tube has a free end portion that mates with the connector body receptacle. A retainer releasably couples the other two components together.
All quick connector endforms allow rotation of the tube relative to the quick connector body. This relative rotational motion may be undesirable in certain applications. With a non-rotating tube, a more robust fluid and vapor (permeation) seal can be maintained.
In one form, this invention provides an endform with a flat on the free end portion of the tube and a coacting flat in the bore of the connector body or housing which coact to keep the relative rotation motion to a minimum.
The endform flat may be positioned anywhere on the endform except at the O-ring sealing location. That surface must be cylindrical to permit the seal surfaces to coact with the O-ring.
In another type of quick connector a locking member is employed that extends perpendicular to the body. It is inserted behind the upset on the tube.
In such a connector assembly, the flat is positioned where the fully engaged quick connect retainer restricts the endform upset. The legs of the locking member contact the flats and reduce relative rotational motion of the endform to the quick connect body.
Another option is to provide a flat on the endform where a verifier or secondary latch adds additional clamping force to the flat to increase the amount of torque required to create relative rotating motion.
The tube in this type of quick connector assembly is provided with flats on opposite sides of the tube adjacent the annular radial surface on the tube upset. The locking arms of the retainer contact the flats to resist rotation. A secondary latch may be employed to prevent the locking arms from spreading apart if rotational force is imparted to the tube.
Past designs for anti-rotation included additional parts such as a clip that snaps over the quick connect body and first bend in the tube nearest the endform portion. The anti-rotation feature of flats on the tube and quick connect body will eliminate the part cost and labor cost of separate clip assembly.
A flat on the nose of the endform solves another problem. Many brake components such as the hydraulic control unit (HCU), anti-lock braking system (ABS) and master cylinder has up to four fluid ports in close proximity to each other on the same plane. Past designs for eliminating tube crossover include machining different size threads into the brake tube nut and receiving bore. Altering thread sizes for each port is costly because it makes uncommon tooling, adds material for the larger thread sizes, increases machining time and decreases batch sizes for brake tube nuts.
Machining or molding a flat inside a fluid tube bore pocket of a body to align with the endform flat of its associated tube can permit many combinations based on the angle of orientation of the flats. This approach can be used to make sure the tube endforms are assembled into the correct receiving port. For example, by rotating the flat at 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise, four separate connection combinations can be achieved.
This approach also takes into account that several flats could be designed in combination to achieve the same anti-rotation and assembly assurances. This pertains to all surface areas of size and shape of the flat or in any combination along the tube in respect to the function of the anti-rotation. Since the tubing is rigid in nature and resists large twisting motions, the flat orientations will make it impossible for the assembly operator to connect into a receiving port that does not have the matching flat orientation. It is possible to increase the number of connections with these features as long as the number of degrees of available tube twist is less than the angle difference between the receiving port flats. A clip may also add to the tube resistance to twisting which may increase number of ports that can be assembled without crossing tubes into the wrong ports.